Stephanie Coontz at Chautauqua on July 2

Best-selling author Stephanie Coontz will speak at Chautauqua Institution on July 2 at 10:45 AM. She is the author of Marriage, A History, a best seller published in 2005, and The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, and The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families.

Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples includes Marriage, a History in their list of recommended books. They write : "Family historian Coontz explodes all assumption about marriage, revealing that throughout history, marriage was not based on mutual love between a breadwinner husband and an at-home wife. Rather, it was an institution devoted to acquiring in-laws, and improving the family labor force. Coontz posits that the Victorians, with their radical emphasis on marital intimacy, and celebration of the individual, simultaneously made marriage more satisfying, and paved the way for the thriving of divorce, same-sex marriage, cohabitation and single parenting."

For more information on Stephanie Coontz, visit http://stephaniecoontz.com For Chautauqua Institution information visit www.ciweb.org or call 1.800.836.ARTS.